The Chartist demands were clear and simple The Chartist demands were clear and simple. Vast numbers of people – over a million signatures are recorded on the petition of 1839 – gave their support to a parliamentary petition calling for greater democracy. However, the petitions of 1839 and 1848 were scornfully rejected by MPs. Mrs. Gaskell. The famous mid-Victorian novelist, wrote about the Chartists march to parliament in 1839: “Tell us what happened when you got to th’ Parliament House”. After a little pause, John answered, “If you please, neighbour, I’d rather say nought about that. It’s not to be forgotten or forgiven by me or many another; but I canna tell of our downcasting just as a piece of London news. As long as I live, our rejection that day will bide in my heart; and as long as I live I shall curse them as so cruelly refused to hear us; but I’ll speak of it no more”.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Birth of the Labour Movement Agricultural work in the Nineteenth Century was hard and back-breaking. Many thought that rural labourers could not be organised and would not fight for themselves, or others. However, in 1834 a group of 6 Dorset farm labourers formed a trade union in the little village of Tolpuddle. They came together to protect themselves from exploitation and from the erosion of their wages that made it ‘impossible to live honestly on such scanty means’. The local landowners determined to break the union and used an out-dated law, left over from the Napoleonic Wars, to have them convicted of swearing ‘illegal oaths’ and transported to Australia for seven years. Petitions to government and enormous public demonstrations eventually brought a remission of their sentence, in 1836, with 5 of the 6 returning home shortly afterwards. Their spokesman, George Loveless served as a delegate to the Chartist Convention, in 1839, and declared: ‘We raise the watch-word liberty; We will, we will, we will be free!’

The Early Days of the Movement Nothing was ever won without a fight. The black-list (effectively barring individuals from work on account of their trade union activity), lock-outs (where employers would refuse to admit their employees in to their workplaces unless they left the union), and intimidation were commonplace. Trade unions were made legal in 1824, largely as the result of Francis Place (1771-1854), a tailor and radical organiser who would later become one of the leaders of the Chartist movement. Early enthusiasm led trade unionists to follow the plans of Robert Owen (1771-1858), an early Socialist and Scottish mill owner, to form ‘One Big’ – general – union, in 1834. However, repression – the use of paid informers – and the transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs effectively crushed the movement.

The New Trade Unions Two strikes, in 1889, changed this view forever. Unskilled and poorly paid workers were organised much more slowly than skilled artisans and craftsmen. Often it was said that they were incapable of being unionised. Two strikes, in 1889, changed this view forever. The first was by Matchwomen, led by Annie Bessant, at the Bryant and May factory; and the second was by the London dockers in a strike for a wage of 6d per hour. Both strikes were won and established the rights of unskilled, marginalised, and women workers, changing the face of trade unionism forever.